Thursday, March 1, 2012

HELENA — Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull on Wednesday
admitted to sending a racially charged email about President Barack
Obama from his courthouse chambers.Cebull,
of Billings, was nominated by former President George W. Bush and
received his commission in 2001 and has served as chief judge for the
District of Montana since 2008.The
subject line of the email, which Cebull sent from his official
courthouse email address on Feb. 20 at 3:42 p.m., reads: "A MOM'S
MEMORY."
The forwarded text reads as follow:
"Normally
I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it
was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I
read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.
"A
little boy said to his mother; 'Mommy, how come I'm black and you're
white?'" the email joke reads. "His mother replied, 'Don't even go there
Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you
don't bark!'"
Cebull admitted Wednesday to sending the email to seven recipients, including his personal email address.
The
judge acknowledged that the content of the email was racist, but said
he does not consider himself racist. He said the email was intended to
be a private communication.
"It was not intended by me in
any way to become public," Cebull said. "I apologize to anybody who is
offended by it, and I can obviously understand why people would be
offended."
Cebull said his brother initially sent him the email, which he forwarded to six of his "old buddies" and acquaintances.
He admitted that he read the email and intended to send it to his friends.
"The
only reason I can explain it to you is I am not a fan of our president,
but this goes beyond not being a fan," Cebull said. "I didn't send it
as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's
anti-Obama."
Travis McAdam, executive director for the
Montana Human Rights Network , said the email contained highly racist
rhetoric unbecoming of a federal judge.
"It's one thing if
the judge is not a fan of President Barack Obama, but you would think
someone in his position would articulate that in a way that criticizes
his policy decisions or his position on issues," McAdam said. "We have a
hard time believing that a legitimate criticism of the president
involves distributing a joke that basically compares African Americans
with animals."

Cebull said he does not consider himself prejudice against people of
other races or ethnic backgrounds, and that his actions in his courtroom
have demonstrated that.
"I have never considered myself
that way," Cebull said. "All I can emphasize is I've treated people in
my courtroom all these years fairly. I don't think I've ever
demonstrated racism. Nobody has ever even implied it."
Montana
immigration attorney Shahid Haque-Hausrath was on the receiving end of a
racially charged email sent by a top Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement official last fall. That official was suspended after
sending Haque-Hausrath an email implying that Muslim Americans must
prove their allegiance to the United State.
Haque-Hausrath,
who is in an interracial marriage and recently fathered a child with
his wife, said Cebull's e-mail was "deeply troubling."
"Another
federal official who is entrusted to do his duties fairly and
impartially has yet again sent an email from his work account during
work hours that espouses deeply racist and bigoted views,"
Haque-Hausrath said. "The reason why I think it's so troubling, is it
espouses the deeply racist view that interracial sex is equivalent to
bestiality. For a federal judge to be equating the two, and say since
Barack Obama is of mixed racial background, that his mother was somehow
committing acts of bestiality is incredibly racist and troubling.
One
of the recipients of the email Cebull sent forwarded it to another
person, who in turn forwarded it to another person. The email was
eventually pass along to the Great Falls Tribune, who contacted Cebull.
Cebull said he was surprised the recipients of the e-mail passed it
along with his name on it.
"This is a private thing that
was, to say the least, very poor judgment on my part," Cebull said. "I
did not forward it because of the racist nature of it. Although it is
racist, I'm not that way, never have been."

Thick clouds of diesel smoke fill the air
outside a run-down guest farm outside the town of Carolina in
Mpumalanga. As the stench dissipates, a group of boys, aged between 13
and 19, spill from the bed of a rusty truck. The trip from the city to
the country was long and hypnotic in the old jalopy.

It is after midnight when the boys heft bags
full of military clothing. "There are old blood stains on my uniform,"
one of them says, as he trades his sneakers for army boots.

Shouted orders ring out. The harsh intimidation begins immediately.
Groaning, the boys raise 4m tent poles among the cowpats dotting the
grassland. The large army tent will be their home for the next nine
days.

Thirteen-year-old Jano, the youngest at the camp, spreads his sleeping
bag on the bumpy floor. He is at the camp because he wants to prove to
his father that he isn't a sissy but a real man, he says with a shy
smile.

At 18, Riaan is already a little more self-assured. His lily-white skin
is recovering from acne. "I want to learn how to camouflage myself in
the veld." He, too, seems excited to be camping out and playing soldier,
as if he's living an adventure out of a boyhood novel.

But soon they will realise this survival camp is different to others held in the veld.

The boys run from the tent to the mess hall. Before them, under the
glare of fluorescent lighting, stands 57-year-old Franz Jooste. Old army
decorations gleam on his apartheid-era uniform. The uniforms of the
boys also come from that era.

"We're going to make men of you all," he tells them in Afrikaans.

'Protecting its own people'
Jooste is the head of the Kommando-korps, a small, little-known
right-wing group bent on breeding hate and banking on some young
Afrikaners' sense of not belonging in the new South Africa to get there.

On its website, the Kommandokorps describes
itself as an elite organisation "protecting its own people" in the event
of an attack, it writes, necessary "because the police and the military
cannot provide help quickly enough".

Last year, it signed a saamstaanverdrag (a unity pact) with the
Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and the Suidlanders -- a small
whites-only group that is awaiting the racial apocalypse -- to
coordinate their security strategy together.
The organisation claims to have trained more than 1 500 Boere-Afrikaner jongmanne
in defence skills over the past 11 years. Jooste, who spreads his
message by e-mail and in newsletters, says that 40% of boys sign up
themselves. The rest are volunteered by their parents.

The teenagers at the camp all know crime horror stories and feel
responsible for protecting their families. "We always have to lock our
doors at night," 18-year-old Nicolas says. "This camp will teach me how
to protect my father and mother, and little brother and sister."

At 4.30am on the first morning of camp, the boys are sent out on a 2km
run in their heavy army boots, down a rocky country road filled with
potholes. The organisation aspires to instil discipline through sweat.
The war of attrition has begun. Indoctrination takes root best in
exhausted ground.

Sixteen-year-old EC is in the middle of the panting troop. He is one of
the smallest boys here, a childlike teenager who is thrilled at being
able to shoot his paintball gun.

'I don't like racism'
"I want to be able to defend myself. And I am also doing this for my
paintball career," he says with a smile. His mother is a single mom and
sent him to the camp because she feels it will be good for her boy to be
surrounded by men.

After they catch their breath, we talk about their country. The
teenagers say they believe in the idea of the rainbow nation but the
contradictions soon emerge.

"People generally get along pretty well," Riaan says. "We have to fight
racism." EC has two black friends, Thabang and Tshepo. "I don't like
racism."

"I don't know what apartheid is," Jano says. "But a long time ago,
Nelson Mandela made it so everyone has the same rights." Then EC adds he
would never marry a black woman and Jano says he is afraid when he
walks past black people.

The group is called to a small field next to the community hall. They
line up in military formation while a camp leader unfolds the old South
African flag. They fill their lungs with air and start singing: "Uit die blou van onse hemel, Uit die diepte van ons see, Oor ons ewige gebergtes waar die kranse antwoord gee."

Some struggle with the words of the apartheid national anthem.

Meanwhile, Jooste sits in the mess hall. Kitsch paintings of buffalos,
elephants and rhinos hang on the walls, and the wicker furniture is
covered in zebra print. He looks through the glasses on his nose at the
camp's schedule. It is written down in military style and every minute
seems accounted for.

Proud veteran
There are slots for self-defence techniques, radio communication and how
to patrol, as well as lectures on patriotism and the history of the
border wars.

Jooste is a proud veteran. He fought on South Africa's borders with
Zimbabwe and Mozambique and in Angola. He is scarred, he says, by what
he calls treason; while
he was fighting for the white regime, his leaders were making peace with
Nelson Mandela. After his army service, he was active in the AWB.

Before his most important lecture, "Die vyand en bedreiging"
(The enemy and the threat), Jooste boasts that it will take him just an
hour to change the boys' minds. "Then they'll know they aren't part of
the rainbow nation but part of another nation with an important
history."

His cadets sit cross-legged on the ground in the mess hall. When he
speaks the teens listen quietly. "Aside from the Aborigines in
Australia, the African black is the most underdeveloped, barbaric member
of the human race on Earth," he says. He tells the boys that black
people have a smaller cerebral cortex than whites and thus cannot take
initiative or govern effectively.

"Who is my enemy in South Africa? Who murders, robs and rapes?" "Who are these creatures?" he asks. "The blacks," he answers.

He picks up the current South African flag and lays it before the
entrance to the mess hall like a doormat. He orders the boys to wipe
their filthy army boots on it. They laugh uncertainly, then they do as
they are told. Only Nicolas stands back.

Jooste tells them that they should love the old South African flag and the old national anthem.

Fear and superiority
An extreme form of patriotism runs through groups like this one; the
cadets at this camp are taught that the country should not return to
apartheid but, rather, they must work to acquire their own independent
nation. Jooste last year got elected on to the Volksraad Verkiesing
Kommissie (People's Council Electoral Commission), a group that fights
for Afrikaner nationalism.

Hermann Gilomee, a renowned writer on Afrikaners and an extraordinary
professor in history at the University of Stellenbosch, says apartheid
stemmed from two sources: fear and a sense of superiority. You can still
see them in Jooste. The primary fear is for the loss of Afrikaner
identity -- their culture, language and symbols -- as a separate people.
Jooste is desperate to conserve this sense of separateness and create a
new generation of Afrikaners who carry his ideas. It is his mission to
indoctrinate young Afrikaners like Nicolas, Riaan, Jano and EC, who are
struggling to determine their position in the country.

Born after the end of apartheid, they feel unwanted, says Unisa
associate professor Eliria Bornman of the department of communication
science who did research on Afrikaner identity. "They know they're
different from the rest of the population. Any leader can take their
frustration and channel it in a negative way."

Outside the tent, the cadets are made to crawl across the ground, army-style, gripping a wooden beam they call liefie
in their arms, their knuckles bleeding. "Persevere! You've got to learn
to persevere," Jooste shouts. The sound of crying rises from the
rearmost ranks. Jooste's assistants, older members of the
Kommando­korps, grin as they take photos of the boys with their
cellphones.

EC is struggling. The beam weighs almost a third as much as he does. The
nights, too, are hitting him hard. "We sleep on the ground and our
sleeping bags get wet. In three nights, I've slept six hours. Every day I
think about giving up." But his paintball career seems to keep him
going.

'You should hate black people'
The next night they move from the army tent to a nearby forest where
they set up two camps. They each get one small tin of canned beans or
vegetables to eat and warm themselves near the fire. At first light, one
of the groups launches an attack. With the sleep still in their eyes
they point and shoot their paintballs.

The young faces are increasingly marked by exhaustion as the days pass,
yet the boys seem to grow more and more confident. "The training has
taught me that you should hate black people," EC says. "They kill
everyone who crosses their path. I don't think I can be friends with
Thabang and Tshepo anymore."

Riaan repeats what he has learned in nine days almost word for word.
"There's a war going on between blacks and whites. A lot of blood will
flow in the future. I definitely feel more like an Afrikaner now. I feel
the Afrikaner blood in my veins."

Jooste insists his job is to teach them to defend themselves. He doesn't
want to force the boys into any particular direction. "All we want to
do is channel the feeling they already carry within them. We don't want
them to hate."

But in nine days, boys who once carried a budding belief in South African unity have become toughened men with racist ideas.

At the end of the camp the two boys who performed best are selected. They will get the next course, the gevorderde weerbaarheids kursus (advanced preparedness course), for free. There the paintball guns will be traded in for the real deal.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Madonna may face a lawsuit over her latest single 'Give Me All Your Luvin''.

Brazilian singer Joao Brasil claims that the track's chorus contains elements from his song 'L.O.V.E. Banana'.

Brasil's record company are contemplating a possible lawsuit over the
track, however Brasil himself has revealed he would rather not face off
against the singer.

"I still don't understand what happened. I'm a
huge fan of hers. If it's plagiarism, then even better. She is always
at the cutting edge of music, so it's a good sign about what I do," he
told Brazilian newspaper Folha da Sao Pauolo.

"It's in
[the record label's] hands, they're looking at how to proceed and what
they can do. But personally I don't want to do anything. The last thing I
need in my life is a fight with Madonna."

'Give Me All Your Luvin'' will feature on Madonna's upcoming LP MDNA, which will be released on March 26.

A racist flag in a racist war

Racism an essential tool for the 1%

February 14, 2012

By Kevin Baker

The author is a former Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army infantry who served 28 months in Iraq.

The U.S. Marine Corps is in hot water once again over leaked images that give a glimpse into its inner workings.
Just like the recent release of a video showing Marines in
Afghanistan urinating on the corpses of Afghan men, the new photo of
Marines posing with a Nazi SS flag doesn’t shock me at all, either.
These two situations emerged in different times and locations in the
country, but are completely bound together. They are bound with the
racism, sense of superiority and sense of nationalism that the military
itself embraces and promotes.
Racism is embraced, coddled and on full display by the top leaders of
the U.S. military. We see it everywhere, in plain sight. In my time in
the U.S. Army, I wore a patch on my shoulder of the 2nd Infantry
Division, bearing the image of an “Indian head,” a racist image that
Native Americans have fought for decades to have removed as an icon from
sports teams, commercial products, and so forth. An image, ironically,
once used to dehumanize the people who were being killed and colonized.
But the racism is far more brazen than that. Anyone who has served in
the U.S. military knows that, despite the official line of its “Equal
Opportunity Program” and official rules and regulations against racism,
use of racist terms to dehumanize Muslims and the peoples of the Middle
East and South Asia are so common they are part of the everyday
vernacular. Nazi paraphernalia is not uncommon
Many were shocked to see U.S. troops flying a Nazi flag, and there
was the immediate excuse that “they didn’t know what it meant.” They
must have only meant “Scout Snipers,” with no knowledge that it was a
Nazi flag, or that it could be interpreted as such.
That is an absolute joke. In my time as an infantryman, I saw Nazi
paraphernalia regularly. Soldiers complained to me that in the barracks
of Ranger Regiment on Fort Lewis, Nazi flags being hung in soldiers’
rooms without repercussion. My first tour in Iraq was the first time I
remember seeing the “Deaths
Head” pin, a symbol of the Nazi SS, placed on the front of soldiers’
vests. It was not the last.
Especially in Special Operations units—such as the Marine snipers in
the photo—Nazi symbolism is revered. Why? Quite simply because the Nazis
are famous for mercilessly killing and terrorizing millions of people.
It fits right in to the mentality expected of Spec Ops.
In fact, when the U.S. military was experiencing a recruiting
shortfall in 2005, the Department of Defense changed its supposedly
strict policy against allowing self-avowed Nazis to join, and adopted an
official “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding members of neo-Nazi
and white-supremacist organizations. They could get “moral waivers,” as
long as they could “perform satisfactorily” in combat. The Pentagon needs racism
As the Marine Corps denounced the leaked photo, they announced that
there would be no disciplinary action for the Marines flying the Nazi
flag, which is not surprising at all. Why would a military so reliant on
racism punish racist behavior?
The reality is that U.S. troops have far more in common with the
people we are sent to fight than the millionaire politicians who send
us. We are told to fight people who also just want a decent life for
their families; people who also needlessly suffer under bogus policies
of corrupt governments; people who are doing the same thing we would be
doing if we were in their shoes. The last thing the Pentagon wants is
for rank-and-file troops to identify with the people we are sent to
fight, relate to them as human beings, and correctly identify that they
are not our enemies.
So in order for the Pentagon to continue sending poor people in the
United States to kill and die fighting poor people in Afghanistan, all
for the super-profits of a handful of billionaires, they need to wrap
the mission in racism, national chauvinism and a sense of superiority.
This is why service members must take a strong stand against racism:
it’s a barrier to unity within the ranks of the military, hindering our
ability to collectively advocate for our interests, and it distorts who
our real enemies are in the world.A racist war
The rationale for the war rests on several racist assertions. On one
hand, there are the assumptions that the people of Afghanistan are too
backward or inferior to determine their own destiny; that they’re too
helpless to survive without the U.S. occupation; that they need saviors
from the West to teach them about democracy, human rights and modernity.
On the other hand, there are the assumptions that the people of
Afghanistan are somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks and will launch
more attacks; that it is a country of “terrorists” or people who
“harbor terrorists”; that they are somehow the aggressors, motivated to
fight by anti-American extremism and not by the daily misery and
humiliation of life under foreign occupation.
The result is that the lives of the people of Afghanistan are seen as
inferior. When Afghan civilians are killed—like the eight children
massacred by a NATO aircraft revealed this week—it is supposed to be
acceptable collateral damage, barely a footnote in the media. The tens
of thousands of innocent people who have been buried, and the hundreds
of thousands wounded and displaced, is considered acceptable. It is
“acceptable” because we are told it is to somehow save American lives,
which by implication are more valuable than Afghan lives.
Without racism and Islamophobia, the reality of the war in
Afghanistan would be on full display: An unpopular war waged by
millionaire politicians and incompetent generals, who tell us flat-out
lies, aimed at nothing other than expanding the reach of Big Business in
yet another resource-rich region of the world. Because people in the
United States would never want to send their loved ones to die for such
an absurd cause, and troops would never want to die for it either,
racism becomes an indispensable tool for those who say we must continue
to fight.
Those wanting a “kinder, gentler” war, where the troops do not
urinate on dead bodies, kill innocent civilians or fly Nazi flags, will
continue to be shocked and disappointed. This is an imperialist war. It
does not get any “kinder and gentler” than this.
Similar leaks will continue to show—not examples of a few “bad
apples”—but the real and inevitable manifestations of the core nature of
U.S. foreign policy.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

The actress who starred in a political attack ad accused of promoting racial stereotypes has apologized.Lisa Chan called her participation in the commercial “a mistake” on her Facebook page.
“I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities,” Chan wrote.
In the 30-second spot, which aired during the Super Bowl and served as a campaign ad for GOP Senate hopeful Pete Hoekstra, Chan was seen riding a bicycle through a field of rice paddies, as ancient Chinese music played in the background.

“We take your jobs,” she told viewers in broken English.
The ad was attacking Hoekstra’s opponent and incumbent, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, for spending and borrowing money from China.
It sparked a media firestorm and drew criticism from fellow politicians
as well as Asian-American groups, who said the ad promoted anti-Asian
stereotypes.
This is what prompted Chan to issue an apology, which was first reported by the blog Angry Asian Man.
“As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve
communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any
way representative of who I am,” she wrote on Facebook.
“It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope
can be forgiven. I feel horrible about my participation and I am
determined to resolve my actions.”
Despite Chan’s regrets, Hoekstra had stood by his decision to run the ad.

“The only group of people that this ad is ‘anti’ — it’s anti-Debbie Stabenow, it’s anti-Barack Obama, the spending policies of the liberal left,” he told Fox News.
“There’s nothing in here that has a racial tint at all.”

On Thursday, popular radio shock jocks John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou
(pictured) of station KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles were suspended and
forced to apologize for making insensitive and callous remarks about the
late iconic songstress Whitney Houston, reports theLos Angeles Times.

The controversial tag team referred to Houston as a “crack h*” and
then went on to say that she had been “cracked out for 20 years.” They
also asked, “Really, it [Whitney's death]took this long?”
For their disrespectful remarks, Kobylt and Chiampou, who broadcast
their show on weekday afternoons, were suspended by KFI station heads
until February 27.
In a statement on the KFI website, the following apology was made to the listeners:

Effective immediately, KFI AM 640 hosts John Kobylt and
Ken Chiampou have been suspended for making insensitive and
inappropriate comments about the late Whitney Houston.

KFI AM 640 Management does not condone, support or tolerate statements of this kind.”

John Kobylt also released a statement:

We made a mistake, and we accept the station’s decision.
We used language that was inappropriate, and we sincerely apologize to
our listeners and to the family of Ms. Houston.

This is not the first incident for Kobylt and Chiampou. Just last year,
they raised the ire of the Hispanic population, when they gave out the
phone number of Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a local
immigration rights advocate, on the air. In no time, Cabrera, a staff
member with the Coalition of Humane Immigration Rights of L.A.,
reportedly received hundreds of hate-filled calls. The inappropriate
move by the foul-mouthed pair was met with a major protest outside of
their offices and also resulted in Verizon and AT&T Wireless pulling
their advertising revenue from the station.

The feel-good story of the year is taking a bit of nasty turn with Asian
stereotyping beginning to appear in media coverage of New York Knicks star guard Jeremy Lin, the NBA's first American-born player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent.

CNBC's Darren Rovell got the ball rolling Wednesday night by questioning why MSG Network showed Lin's face above a fortune cookie during coverage of the Knicks' victory against the Sacramento Kings, with the words, "The Knicks good fortune."

MSG put out a statement Thursday saying it had
nothing to do with the image: "What appeared briefly last night was not
an MSG graphic, it was one of many fan signs in the arena."

The network declined to comment on why it telecast the image.

Rovell corrected himself on Twitter on Thursday.

It's
a "tough call" whether MSG should, or could, be faulted for showing a
fortune cookie sign created by a fan to TV viewers, says Andrew Kang,
senior staff attorney at the Asian-American Institute in Chicago.

"I
would prefer maybe they didn't show that — although I could imagine
people finding it humorous. But I think it does go to what people think
when they think of Asians. They think of food. Because that is really
their only point of contact, or awareness, with the Asian-American
community."

The New York Post
also took criticism for using the headline, "Amasian," after Lin
drilled a game-clinching three-pointer for the win against the Toronto
Raptors on Tuesday.

During CBS' The Late Show with David Letterman on Wednesday, Jon Stewart of Comedy Central mocked the headline, according to SportsBusiness Daily.

Stewart told Letterman: "It'd be like when Sandy Koufax threw a perfect game, you just wrote on there 'JEWTIFUL!' … I feel like it's very 'Lin-sensitive.'"

Boxer
Floyd Mayweather caused headlines earlier in the week by saying Lin is
only getting a lot of attention "because he's Asian."

Columnist Jason Whitlock embarrassed Fox Sports
with a tweet about Lin playing off Asian stereotypes. On that, the
Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) sent a letter to Whitlock
that read, in part:

"The attempt at humor —
and we hope that is all it was — fell flat. It also exposed how some
media companies fail to adequately monitor the antics of their
high-profile representatives. Standards need to be applied — by you and
by Fox Sports.

"The offensive tweet debased
one of sports' feel-good moments, not just among Asian Americans but for
so many others who are part of your audience.

"Where do we go from here? How about an apology, Mr. Whitlock."

Whitlock apologized, and the AAJA thanked him for that.

The
sophomoric, sexual stereotype was "completely out-of-line," Kang says.
It was also "misogynistic" — so he's not sure who the columnist offended
more: Asians or women.

"There's this idea
that it's OK to stereotype Asians — just don't with African-Americans or
Latinos because you'll get in trouble and you'll get an aggressive
response," Kang says. "But somehow it's OK to do that to the
Asian-American community. …

"In some ways, I'm
grateful that it is coming out so we can talk about it and people can
really start to challenge what are their pre-conceived notions about the
Asian-American community or Asian-American athletes."

But
Kang also sees "soft" racism in media debates about why Lin went
unnoticed for so long by the basketball establishment and why he's
setting the NBA on fire now.

"You hear endless debates about: 'How can this be happening? How can he be doing so well?'" Kang says.

"The
very simple answer is he's very talented, he was overlooked by scouts
or they missed that one. What they really mean is: 'How can an
Asian-American be doing so well in the NBA?'

"I
think they're looking for answers other than he's athletically gifted,"
Kang says. "They're trying to attribute it to (Knicks coach) Mike D'Antoni's system, (All-Star forward) Carmelo Anthony's
not around. So somebody has to put up the shots. They're trying to
figure out how can this Asian-American be such a playmaker — and why
didn't anyone else notice him earlier."

The Fox News commentator who said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles)
should "step away from the crack pipe" referring to remarks she made
about House Republican leaders said his comments were a joke. But the
Los Angeles County Democratic Party didn't find it very funny.
Rep. Waters, a Democrat representing parts of Los Angeles, was a
topic of conversation on Thursday's edition of the Fox News morning
newscast "Fox and Friends," because of a speech in which she called House Republic leadership "demons."
That riled up commentator Eric Bolling. "Congresswoman, you saw what
happened to Whitney Houston," he said. "Step away from the crack pipe,
step away from the Xanax, step away from the Lorazepam, because it's
going to get you in trouble."
The show's hosts were caught by surprise and gasped. After the show
returned from a commercial break, Bolling said it was a joke. "I just
want to say I was kidding about the crack pipe," he said. "Just
kidding."
Eric C. Bauman, chairman of the L.A. County Democratic Party, called
for the network to remove Bolling, condemning his remarks as, at best,
"insensitive and inappropriate" and a "horribly offensive
characterization of a longtime member of Congress."
"At worst," he said in a statement, "Bolling's comment oozes racism,
which serves to discredit a strong African American woman by
perpetrating racial stereotypes. Regardless of whether this remark was
deliberate or offhand -- it was irresponsible, despicable and
reprehensible."

Thursday, February 16, 2012

A Whitewashed Earthsea

How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books.

On Tuesday night, the Sci Fi Channel aired its final installment of Legend of Earthsea, the miniseries based—loosely, as it turns out—on my Earthsea books. The books, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan,
which were published more than 30 years ago, are about two young people
finding out what their power, their freedom, and their responsibilities
are. I don't know what the film is about. It's full of scenes from the
story, arranged differently, in an entirely different plot, so that they
make no sense. My protagonist is Ged, a boy with red-brown skin. In the
film, he's a petulant white kid. Readers who've been wondering why I
"let them change the story" may find some answers here.

When I sold the rights to Earthsea a few years ago, my contract gave
me the standard status of "consultant"—which means whatever the
producers want it to mean, almost always little or nothing. My agency
could not improve this clause. But the purchasers talked as though they
genuinely meant to respect the books and to ask for my input when
planning the film. They said they had already secured Philippa Boyens
(who co-wrote the scripts for The Lord of the Rings) as
principal script writer. The script was, to me, all-important, so
Boyens' presence was the key factor in my decision to sell this group
the option to the film rights.

Months went by. By the time the producers got backing from the Sci Fi
Channel for a miniseries—and another producer, Robert Halmi Sr., had
come aboard—they had lost Boyens. That was a blow. But I had just seen
Halmi's miniseries DreamKeeper, which had a stunning Native American cast, and I hoped that Halmi might include some of those great actors in Earthsea.

At this point, things began to move very fast. Early on, the
filmmakers contacted me in a friendly fashion, and I responded in kind; I
asked if they'd like to have a list of name pronunciations; and I said
that although I knew that a film must differ greatly from a book, I
hoped they were making no unnecessary changes in the plot or to
the characters—a dangerous thing to do, since the books have been known
to millions of people for decades. They replied that the TV audience is
much larger, and entirely different, and would be unlikely to care
about changes to the books' story and characters.

They then sent me several versions of the script—and told me that
shooting had already begun. I had been cut out of the process. And just
as quickly, race, which had been a crucial element, had been cut out of
my stories. In the miniseries, Danny Glover is the only man of color
among the main characters (although there are a few others among the
spear-carriers). A far cry from the Earthsea I envisioned. When I looked
over the script, I realized the producers had no understanding of what
the books are about and no interest in finding out. All they intended
was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a
generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and
violence.

Most of the characters in my fantasy and far-future science fiction
books are not white. They're mixed; they're rainbow. In my first big
science fiction novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, the only
person from Earth is a black man, and everybody else in the book is
Inuit (or Tibetan) brown. In the two fantasy novels the miniseries is
"based on," everybody is brown or copper-red or black, except the
Kargish people in the East and their descendants in the Archipelago, who
are white, with fair or dark hair. The central character Tenar, a Karg,
is a white brunette. Ged, an Archipelagan, is red-brown. His friend,
Vetch, is black. In the miniseries, Tenar is played by Smallville's Kristin Kreuk, the only person in the miniseries who looks at all Asian. Ged and Vetch are white.

My color scheme was conscious and deliberate from the start. I didn't
see why everybody in science fiction had to be a honky named Bob or Joe
or Bill. I didn't see why everybody in heroic fantasy had to be white
(and why all the leading women had "violet eyes"). It didn't even make
sense. Whites are a minority on Earth now—why wouldn't they still be
either a minority, or just swallowed up in the larger colored gene pool,
in the future?

The fantasy tradition I was writing in came from Northern Europe,
which is why it was about white people. I'm white, but not European. My
people could be any color I liked, and I like red and brown and black. I
was a little wily about my color scheme. I figured some white kids (the
books were published for "young adults") might not identify straight
off with a brown kid, so I kind of eased the information about skin
color in by degrees—hoping that the reader would get "into Ged's skin"
and only then discover it wasn't a white one.

I was never questioned about this by any editor. No objection was
ever raised. I think this is greatly to the credit of my first editors
at Parnassus and Atheneum, who bought the books before they had a
reputation to carry them.

But I had endless trouble with cover art. Not on the great cover of
the first edition—a strong, red-brown profile of Ged—or with Margaret
Chodos Irvine's four fine paintings on the Atheneum hardcover set, but
all too often. The first British Wizard was this pallid, droopy, lily-like guy—I screamed at sight of him.

Gradually I got a little more clout, a little more say-so about
covers. And very, very, very gradually publishers may be beginning to
lose their blind fear of putting a nonwhite face on the cover of a book.
"Hurts sales, hurts sales" is the mantra. Yeah, so? On my books, Ged
with a white face is a lie, a betrayal—a betrayal of the book, and of
the potential reader.

I think it is possible that some readers never even notice what color
the people in the story are. Don't notice, don't care. Whites of course
have the privilege of not caring, of being "colorblind." Nobody else
does.

I have heard, not often, but very memorably, from readers of color
who told me that the Earthsea books were the only books in the genre
that they felt included in—and how much this meant to them, particularly
as adolescents, when they'd found nothing to read in fantasy and
science fiction except the adventures of white people in white worlds.
Those letters have been a tremendous reward and true joy to me.

So far no reader of color has told me I ought to butt out, or that I
got the ethnicity wrong. When they do, I'll listen. As an
anthropologist's daughter, I am intensely conscious of the risk of
cultural or ethnic imperialism—a white writer speaking for nonwhite
people, co-opting their voice, an act of extreme arrogance. In a totally
invented fantasy world, or in a far-future science fiction setting, in
the rainbow world we can imagine, this risk is mitigated. That's the
beauty of science fiction and fantasy—freedom of invention.

But with all freedom comes responsibility. Which is something these filmmakers seem not to understand.

People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, the vocal group behind those eye-popping anti-fur
ads, filed a lawsuit against SeaWorld for capturing and "enslaving"
orcas named as plaintiffs in the case.

At a Monday hearing in San
Diego, PETA Attorney Jeffrey Kerr argued that the big mammals should be
protected under the 13th Amendment.

"Tilikum, Katina, Kasatka,
Ulises and Corky have been captive and subjected to treatment that we
feel is slavery," Kerr told U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller, who is
now weighing SeaWorld's request to toss the case, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Miller noted that there is no legal precedent for protecting animals under the 13th Amendment.

SeaWorld argued the consequences of setting such a
precedent could be difficult to contain and may lead to cases brought
against police departments and the military for their use of service
dogs.

"We're talking about hell unleashed," The San Francisco Chronicle quoted SeaWorld
attorney Theodore Shaw as saying. "Neither orcas nor any other animal
were included in the 'We the people' ... when the Constitution was
adopted."

Judge Miller said he would review all the information before deciding whether to dismiss or proceed with the case.

PETA officials heralded the hour-long hearing as a victory in and of itself.

"This is truly a historic
day for the law and for the animals," spokesman David Perle said. Kerr
added that "for the first time in our nation's history, a federal court
heard arguments as to whether living, breathing, feeling beings have
rights and can be enslaved simply because they happen to not have been
born human."

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District
Court of Nebraska, seeks $500 million in damages for the costs the tribe
has incurred in dealing with crime and providing social services and
health care as a result of rampant alcoholism among the 20,000 tribal
members.

The suit is on behalf of the tribe, however, and no individual tribal members are plaintiffs and eligible for money.

It also targets four beer stores in Whiteclay, Neb., a tiny town in northwest Nebraska at the South Dakota
border near the reservation. Despite only about dozen residents in
town, the stores sold almost 5 million cans of beer in 2010 -- almost
250 cans per Pine Ridge tribal member. Alcohol is not legal on the reservation.

Tribal
leaders and activists blame Whiteclay businesses for chronic alcohol
abuse and bootlegging on the reservation. They say most of the stores'
customers come from Pine Ridge.

"In a town of
11 people selling 4.9 million 12-ounce servings of beer, there is no way
that alcohol could be legally consumed. It's just impossible," said Thomas White, a former Nebraska legislator and Omaha, Neb., lawyer who is representing the tribe.

Equally
as important as the damage award the tribe wants is that the lawsuit
seeks a ruling on how much beer Whiteclay retailers can sell, White
said. This is the key to stopping beer trafficking at Pine Ridge.

"We
are not saying you can't sell beer," White said. But he points to the
large amount of beer sold in Whiteclay in 2010 and says, "you cannot
sell in volumes you know will be illegally transported and sold. You
have to reduce sales to a responsible level."

The
lawsuit alleges that beer makers and stores sold to Pine Ridge
residents knowing they would smuggle the alcohol into the reservation to
drink or resell. Beer makers supplied the stores with "volumes of beer
far in excess of an amount that could be sold in compliance with the
laws of the state of Nebraska," tribal officials allege in the lawsuit.

Most
of Whiteclay's beer store customers have no legal place to drink
alcohol because it's banned on the reservation, state law prohibits
drinking outside the stores and the nearest town that allows alcohol is
20 miles south, said Mark Vasina, president of the group Nebraskans for
Peace.

Owners of the four beer stores in
Whiteclay were unavailable or declined comment Thursday when The
Associated Press contacted them. A spokeswoman for Anheuser-Busch InBev
Worldwide said she was not yet aware of the lawsuit, and the other four
companies being sued did not immediately return messages.

The
lawsuit's defendants include the distributors and brewers and Whiteclay
retail outlets because those higher up the sales and distribution chain
exert pressure to maximize beer sales, White said. In hearings before
the Nebraska Legislature in the past, distributors have argued their contracts with brewers require them to sell all the beer they are supplied.

"If
the brewers say that to their distributors, then they all deserve it,"
White said of including brewers in the lawsuit. "These guys have an
obligation to control their distributors."

Frank Pommersheim, a University of South Dakota law professor, is not sure the federal government can oversee the way Nebraska regulates beer sales.

"There
is no doubt of the incredible harm caused by the actions in Whiteclay,"
Pommersheim said. "The question is whether that translates into an
actionable claim of federal jurisdiction."

The
tribe sees the lawsuit as a last resort after numerous failed attempts
to deal with the abuse through protests and public pressure on
lawmakers. Oglala Sioux President John Yellow Bird Steele said the
tribal council authorized the lawsuit in an effort to protect the
reservation's youth.

"Like American parents
everywhere, we will do everything lawful we can to protect the health,
welfare and future of our children," he said.

Nebraska
lawmakers have struggled for years to curb the problem and are
considering legislation this year that would allow the state to limit
the types of alcohol sold in areas such as Whiteclay. The measure would
require local authorities to ask the state to designate the area an
"alcohol impact zone."

Nebraska's liquor
commission then could limit the hours alcohol sellers are open, ban the
sale of certain products or impose other restrictions.

Thomas
Horton, a USD law professor who has a lengthy career litigating federal
antitrust and civil cases, said the tribe's case could have national
significance.

And Horton knows the beer business. "I was the lead attorney on the Miller-Coors merger," he said.

"This
sounds like a very interesting lawsuit that is going to have some
legs," Horton said. "I would think the tribe's jurisdiction over alcohol
sales is protected, and this sounds like a scheme to circumvent that.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

After racist threats were found on the door and
adjacent wall of a Montclair State University student's dorm room, the
sophomore has decided to move back to her parents' home in Newark, N.J.

On the wall were the words
"BLACKS ONLY," with an arrow pointed toward the room. And on the door,
someone wrote the N-word, and "Black B---- you will die."

"I instantly started crying," Olivia McRae, 19, told NBC New York..

McRae told her RA, who then called campus police to investigate.

Police were already in the
middle of investigating an earlier bias incident from late January, when
someone wrote anti-gay graffiti on walls in a commons area.

That sparked the university to sponsor a Day of Unity earlier this week.

Just hours after that rally, the racist writings were found outside McRae's room.

She wants the university to
install security cameras in residence hallways, something that
Montclair State was already considering, according to Karen Pennington,
vice president for Student Development and Campus Life.

"This is just so much of an
anathema to who we are as an institution," Pennington said. She added
that the university is taking these incidents "very seriously."

McRae, a sophomore who is studying to be an accountant, has moved back to her parents' home in Newark.

She said she will not drop out of school.

"I'm never going to let anybody stop me from being successful -- I already had a hard enough life," McRae said.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

SHAWANO, WISCONSIN - What's love got to do with it? Not
much, especially if you say the words "I love you" in the Menominee
language in front of a certain Wisconsin teacher.

Seventh grader Miranda Washinawatok, Menominee, found this out.
Miranda speaks two languages: Menominee and English. She also plays
on her basketball team. However, two Thursdays ago she was suspended for
one basketball game because she spoke Menominee to a fellow classmate
during class.
Miranda attends Sacred Heart Catholic Academy in Shawano, Wisconsin.
The school body is over 60 percent American Indian. The school is
approximately six miles from the south border of the Menominee Indian
Tribe Reservation.
"On January 19 I was told by Miranda she was being benched from
playing that night. I found out at 4:20 and we were back at school at
6:30 pm so I could get to the bottom of why she could not play,"
said Tanaes Washinawatok, Miranda's mother.
"Miranda kept saying she was only told by her assistant coach she was
being benched because two teachers said she had a bad attitude. I
wanted to know what she did to make them say she had a bad attitude."
At the school, the teachers and coaching staff seemed to want to cast blame on each other, according to Miranda's mother.
"I wanted to talk to the principal, but he was not there before the game started,"
stated Tanaes Washinawatok. Being a persistent concerned parent,
Washinawatok was back at the school by 7:30 the next morning to speak to
the principal.
The principal told Washinawatok that the assistant coach told him she
was told by two teachers to bench Miranda for attitude problems.
The alleged 'attitude problem' turned out to be that Miranda said the Menominee word

“posoh”that means“hello”

and said

“Ketapanen”

in Menominee that means "I love you."
Miranda and a fellow classmate were talking to each other when
Miranda told her how to say "Hello" and "I love you" in Menominee.
"The teacher went back to where the two were sitting and literally
slammed her hand down on the desk and said, "How do I know you are not
saying something bad?"
The story did not end there. In the next session, another teacher
told Miranda she did not appreciate her getting the other teacher upset
because "she is like a daughter to me."
By the time, Miranda was picked up by her mother she was upset for being suspended.
"Miranda knows quite a bit of the Menominee language. We speak it. My
mother, Karen Washinawatok, is the director of the Language and Culture
Commission of the Menominee Tribe. She has a degree in linguistics from
the University of Arizona's College of Education-AILDI American Indian
Language Development Institute. She is a former tribal chair and is
strong into our culture,"
states Tanaes Washinawatok.
Washinawatok has had a total of three meetings with school officials
and was promised Miranda would receive a public apology, as would the
Menominee Tribe, and the apologies would be publically placed.
"On Wednesday, a letter was sent to parents and guardians. A real
generic letter of apology, that really did not go into specifics as to
why there was this apology,"
Washinawatok told the Native News Network Thursday evening.
"I still don't think it was enough,"
Sacred Heart Catholic Academy is operated by the Diocese of Green
Bay, which ironically has an option on its answering machine for
Spanish, but not Menominee. A call put in late Thursday afternoon by the
Native News Network was not returned by press time.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–The Chinese American Citizens Alliance condemns the
campaign ad broadcast over Michigan stations during the Super Bowl this
past Sunday by U. S. Senate hopeful Pete Hoekstra. The ad
depicts an Asian woman pedaling her bicycle down a dirt road surrounded
by rice fields with Chinese instruments comprising the soundtrack. As
she speaks in broken English, the Asian actor, complete with a cone,
straw hat, boastfully gloats to the audience that the strong economy in
China due to our insatiable appetite for debt is the reason for our weak
economy and the loss of American jobs.

In a state that has witnessed its share of Asian bashing such as in
the 1980’s when Japanese cars were singled out for vandalism and
destruction and young Chinese American Vincent Chin was beaten to death
in 1982 by two unemployed autoworkers angry about the influx of Japanese
cars (purchased by any and all of us as American consumers), the
Alliance believes Hoekstra and his team should know better than to
incite others with this inflammatory message. Though his rival,
incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow is the target, the irresponsible rhetoric
of the ad only creates divisiveness and finger pointing at Asian
Americans among those who view Asian Americans not as U.S. citizens but
somehow as representatives of China.
The Alliance is well aware of the economic hardships but steadfast
fortitude of the citizens of the state of Michigan and their importance
to our overall economy as the state and nation recover. Side-by-side on
assembly lines in Michigan’s automotive plants, hardworking people of
all races, including Asian Americans, are found. The Alliance asks that
the citizens of Michigan immediately reject this type of racial
stereotyping, race baiting and bullying that this type of campaign
message could incite and seriously question the wisdom of electing
someone who could occupy one of the 100 most revered and respected seats
in the U.S. Senate chambers, yet displays little understanding and
knowledge of the harmful effects of discrimination and racism.

Vile racism raised its ugly head during a boys basketball game near
Pittsburgh on Friday when fans of a nearly all-white suburban school ran
on the court in banana suits and made monkey noises to taunt the
players for their rivals, who play for a school which is predominantly
African-American.

"I was appalled and shocked," Monessen parent Terri Payne told WPXI.
"I was like, 'I can't believe they're doing that, and they didn't do
anything about it.'"
Disturbingly, other Monessen parents claim that the Brentwood players hurled similar racist epithets themselves, calling the Greyhounds "monkeys and cotton pickers," as one Monessen fan told WPXI.
Meanwhile, Valley Independent staff writer Jeremy Sellew claimed that
Brentwood Director of Security Joseph Kozarian, who was on duty at the
game, refused to intervene, instead sitting back and at one point smiling and laughing with the Brentwood fans in the stands.
As more media attention has swirled around the disgusting incident,
Brentwood officials have scrambled to try and alleviate pressure on the
school and district as a whole. As of Tuesday the three students
involved had been identified and disciplined, though their punishment
was not disclosed to the media. Similarly, officials claimed they were
"reviewing school policy to make sure a similar incident doesn't happen
again."
Clearly, that's not strong enough. If the banana suit incident and
subsequent racist abuse from Brentwood players occurred as numerous
witnesses claim it did, the entire Brentwood season should be put under
much deeper inspection before moving forward.
This is legitimate hate speech, after all, and the teenagers who were
responsible need to realize just how damaging that is, both to their
victims, themselves and society as a whole. At the very least, any
players who made racist comments during the game itself should be
punished significantly.

Police are investigating yet another video of a London Underground passenger hurling racist abuse at foreign passengers.The film shows the middle-aged white woman direct a tirade of abuse at Asian passengers on a Central Line train between St Paul’s and Mile End stations.She
begins by shouting 'all f****** foreign s********' in a shocking
seven-minute long expletive-ridden rant in front of stunned onlookers.

The woman - with shoulder-length black
hair and a thick Cockney accent - then asks 'where do you come from?
F****** like, f****** all over the world'.Footage
of the incident emerged on YouTube on January 24 after a string of
similar rants by women were made public last year. It is believed to
have been filmed on January 23.It shows the woman, whose name is not known, sitting between two Pakistani men.

After saying that they come from all
over the world, she asks: 'I'd like to know if any of you are f******
illegal, I'm sure 30 per cent of you are. It's taking the f****** p***.'The
woman then becomes aggressive towards the Asian man sitting next to
her. 'I hope they f****** catch up with you and shove you off,' she
says. She adds: 'I shall
punch you in the f****** face. Ninety per cent of you are f******
illegal. I wouldn't mind if you loved our country.'

After singing in his language, he defends his native country as other passengers on the carriage laugh at his gestures. The woman then turns her attention to the man who is filming the abuse on his mobile phone, who says he is British.He tells her to 'watch what you say' but she responds: 'I used to live in England now I live in the United Nations.'The woman then appears to become increasingly aggressive in an argument that lasts for another four minutes.

At one point she appears to try to attack the Pakistani man before she is thrown into a seat on the other side of the train. She gets up and screams: 'As long as you're f****** working, and not claiming benefits.' A second clip uploaded on the video sharing site shows her standing up as she waits to leave the train. She
says to another foreign traveller: 'This is what we've got to put up
with... that's what we don't like about you people. I'll show you what
kind of government lets people like you in.'The video emerged after similar clips were uploaded onto the internet.

One, recorded on a Croydon to Wimbledon tram, showed a woman holding a toddler as she shouted at passengers. Emma West was charged with a racially aggravated public order offence in connection with the incident in December.West, a 34-year-old mother from New Addington, Croydon, will appear at Croydon Crown Court at a later date.Another video called 'Welcome to London' showed a woman holding a pink rose on the London Underground as she abused passengers. Another
was of a drunk woman who tried to punch a black passenger on a London
bus, but ended up falling over herself then being thrown into the
street.A British Transport
Police spokesman said: 'BTP is aware of the videos posted on YouTube
which show a woman making alleged racist comments on board a Central
Line Tube train between St Paul’s and Mile End stations during the
evening of Sunday, 23.'Detectives were made aware of the videos on January 24 and immediately launched an investigation.'Anyone
who witnessed this incident, or who has information which they believe
can assist police, is asked to get in touch and help us build up a full
picture of what took place.'BTP
treats all allegations of racism on the London Underground very
seriously and would urge anyone with information about this incident to
contact us.'

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Residents of a quiet Dundas neighbourhood awoke Thursday morning to
hateful, racist and profane messages spray painted on homes, garages and
vehicles.
The messages, in black paint, targeted black and Jewish people, and included swastikas and anti-suburbia sentiment.
Fernando Gastaldo said another neighbour called him around 7 a.m. and
told him to take a look outside. He was shocked to see his white
vehicle and four neighbour’s homes on Woodlawn Court covered in the
hateful graffiti.
“It’s the hate that’s so shocking,” he said.
Neighbour Joan Hynes said her home was not vandalized, but she said the graffiti is disturbing for the whole neighbourhood.
Her 10-year-old son read the messages and asked her what some of the words meant.
“Now I have to explain that there are bad people out there,” she said, adding that there are many young children on the street.
Neighbours believe the incident likely occurred around 2 a.m., when a dog in one home began barking.
Hamilton police were on the scene around 8 a.m. taking pictures of the graffiti.
The path of the graffiti appears to show that the suspect or suspects
walked up Queen Street, took climbed a hill that is a commonly used
pathway up to Woodlawn, and then chose houses at random before the paint
wore out. An empty spray paint can was discarded at one of the homes.
Graffiti at a home on Queen Street included the message RIP Arty and Jake.
The front walkway of another home was littered with tree branches arranged in crosses.
The neighbourhood has had an issue in the past with items being
stolen from cars, but never anything like this, neighbours said.
More to come.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

On a bright sunny day last fall, a tall, slender, dark-skinned black
woman left her Georgia home and then simply vanished into thin air.
Thirty-five-year-old Shandell McLeod was last seen outside her house
located in a quiet suburban neighborhood in Lithonia on the 24th of
September, says Detective H. Guest, of Dekalb County Police Department,
who is working on the case. Her distraught family says they now fear for
her life.
"She is a single, professional, career-orientated woman, with no
criminal record and her disappearance is completely uncharacteristic,"
says Detective Guest.
What makes this story even more tragic is that her inexplicable
disappearance has received absolutely no coverage from local or national
media operators.

The only platform that has drawn attention to McLeod's mysterious departure is the Black and Missing Foundation, Inc. (BAM FI) website
and their social networking sites. "What is so frustrating is what we
have to go through to get attention for our missing persons," says
Natalie Wilson, co-founder & director of public relations at the
Black and Missing Foundation.
In fact, according to FBI statistics African-Africans and other minorities make up roughly 40 percent of all missing persons.
"How often do you see these stories getting media attention," says
Derrica N. Wilson, a veteran law enforcement official and co-founder,
president and CEO of the Black and Missing Foundation. "The public are misled to believe all victims are blond and blue eyed."
It is this nagging feeling among many black Americans, borne out by
facts, that their missing-person cases don't get as much attention as
missing-person cases involving whites that has led to accusations of
media bias.
So much so that producers at TV One felt the need to devote an entire
series to unsolved cases of missing African-Americans, with a hope to
unearth clues and encourage viewers to come forward with information.
The 10-part documentary-series, "Find Our Missing," premieres on the
cable network tonight.
"Though African-Americans are disproportionately affected there
clearly is a void in the coverage of some of these cases," Craig Henry,
co-executive in charge of production at TV One told theGrio. "We are
just pleased we can use our resources to fill in this gap."
Blacks account for 12 percent of the population yet are involved in
about a third of the country's missing-persons cases, says Toni Judkins,
programming chief at TV One.
"Unfortunately there's a history of distrust between the black
community and the police," says Wilson of the Black and Missing
Foundation, which aims to put the spotlight on missing persons of color
and educate the minority community about better personal safety. "So we
have created a forum where people can come to our website and report
anonymously."
Psychologists say when a person is missing or a body cannot be found
it is often more traumatic than facing death, even homicide, for loved
ones left behind, because there is no outlet for emotional closure.
"I just want to give her family closure," says Det. Guest, who adds
that so far they have one main suspect in the McLeod case, "an
African-American man called Ricky Noble who was last seen in possession
of her car before fleeing from police."
Anyone with information about Shandell McLeod's disappearance contact Detective H. Guest on 770-724-7866 or visit www.BAMFI.org and click on "Tip Line."

An interracial couple, who yesterday found
out a man was arrested in connection with racist graffiti scrawled on
their Newmarket home, say they have given up their home because of the
ordeal.
Although they are relieved someone has been arrested, they made the
"mistake" of selling their home last week after more threats were mailed
to the Hodgson Drive address, Rita Brown and her partner, Seun Oyinsan,
said this morning.
"We got a letter saying someone was planning remote control explosives
and to kiss my kids goodnight," she said. "That was enough for us and we
sold our home."
Only yesterday, the couple found out a man Rita described as her ex-boyfriend had been arrested by police.
"To say I was shocked is an understatement," she said. "I was just talking to him and trying to help him out last week.
Now, the couple is left searching for a new house in which to live.
"We have huge regrets over the sale of our home. We lost $30,000 on the deal," Ms Brown said.
"We plan on staying in Newmarket, but I think we are going to rent for a while."
Between September 2011 and January, a mixed-raced couple had racist
words and symbols spray-painted on their home and vehicles. Police
confirmed the man had been involved in an earlier relationship with the
female victim.
“I always felt it was an isolated incident and that it did not reflect
the way our community embraces our diversity,” Newmarket Mayor Tony Van
Bynen said.
He appreciates the hard work of the police as well as their commitment, from the onset, to solving the crime.
Although many residents and those following the story from beyond the
town’s borders were appalled with the act when it came to light, there
is a silver lining.
“On a positive note, this incident actually helped the surrounding
neighbourhood rally together as many felt this was not how they wanted
their neighbourhood identified,” Mr. Van Bynen said. “Many of the
residents had lived there for years and were saddened to see their
neighbourhood identified because of this incident.”
It was the catalyst for the formation of the Newmarket Cares community
group that has worked to get support for the victims of this crime.
“Newmarket is an inclusive community in which we pride ourselves on
being accepting of others and celebrating cultural harmony, heritage and
ethnic diversity,” he said,
Four separate reports of property damage or threats involving hateful language were made to police.
Police identified a suspect and a man was arrested Monday.
A 63-year-old Bradford man is charged with two counts of mischief, uttering threats and criminal harassment.
He was released and is to be back in a Newmarket court in March.
York Regional Police also consider the episode to be an isolated incident, Const. Rebecca Boyd said.
The Newmarket Crown attorney’s office will consider the legal definition
of hate crime as this case proceeds through the courts, police said.
Ms Brown plans to speak with police about what to do with the camera
that was donated to her by the Newmarket Cares community group.
"I plan on donating it to whoever needs it," she said.

MONTREAL - Pop quiz: What unfortunate distinction does Olivier Le Jeune hold in Canadian history?
Le
Jeune was the first recorded black slave in New France, brought to
Canada from Africa in the 17th century when he was a child.
If you didn’t know the answer, you aren’t alone.
The
story of blacks in Canada doesn’t form part of the national narrative
and is outside the mainstream of what most people learn, says Lawrence
Hill, author of the acclaimed historical novel The Book of Negroes.
Hill
told students on Thursday at École secondaire Antoine-de-Saint-Exupéry
in St. Léonard that he finds most Canadians and Quebecers know more
about the history of blacks in the United States than they do about the
topic in their own country and province.
As a teenager, Hill said
he was never taught about the history of blacks in Canada. If it wasn’t
for his parents, who had written books on the subject, “I wouldn’t have
even known that slavery existed in Canada.”
Hill’s appearance
marked the launch of Black History Month at the high school and also the
launch of a French-language Black History in Canada Education Guide, a
teaching tool that draws on The Book of Negroes.
The guide was
developed by the Historica-Dominion Institute, a charitable organization
dedicated to Canadian history and citizenship. It contains discussion
questions related to Hill’s novel as well as a black history in Canada
timeline, that notes key milestones such as the abolishment of slavery
in the British colonies that took effect in 1834 and the election in
1866 of Mifflin Gibbs to the Victoria Town Council, making him the first
black politician in Canada.
The English guide was sent to more
than 3,000 schools across Canada last year. The new French guide has
gone to 1500 French and bilingual schools in the country.
“It’s an
honour for the novel but more importantly it’s a tool that hopefully
teachers or students can use if they want to learn more,” Hill said in
an interview.
Many teachers and educators have so little
information about black history, Hill said. “Dozens of times in my life
teachers have come to me and said ‘I’d love to do something about black
history or talk about black literature but where can I find anything?’”
“As
Mr. Hill said, it seems that Canadians know a lot about (American)
black history but we don’t know enough about our own black history,”
said Brigitte D’Auzac, senior manager of programming for the
Historica-Dominion Institute. “So it was important for the institute to
make sure that we talk about it,” D’Auzac said. “Let’s get every kid in
school aware of this. And let’s talk about our history. It’s important
and we need to know about it.”
Hill told students how he was born
and raised in Toronto, the son of a black father and white mother who
had emigrated from the U.S. Fluent in French, and a graduate of
Université Laval, Hill talked to students about his novel, weaving in
historical information like the first big wave of black immigration in
1783 to Nova Scotia at the end of American Revolutionary War—and how,
faced with racial discrimination, slavery and segregation in their new
location, one-third of the Black loyalists ultimately left Halifax in 15
boats to create the colony of Freetown in Sierra Leone. “The first big
exodus of blacks from the Americas to return to live in Africa came from
Halifax,” in 1792, Hill said.
He also read an excerpt from The Book of Negroes, which has been translated into French with the title Aminata.
Hill
said it’s great to see more and more people in Quebec have learned
about Marie-Joseph Angélique, a black slave who was accused in 1734 of
setting fire to her master’s house, which also destroyed half of what
was then Montreal. (Angélique was convicted and executed.) For the
longest of times, people in Quebec seemed to know nothing about the
history of slavery in Montreal or Quebec City, Hill said. “After all,
the first slave in Canada is in Quebec City in 1628–a boy from
Madagascar, Olivier Le Jeune.”
Hill said he believes there is
often an “unconscious resistance” to looking at our own history. How is
it that many Canadians, especially those who, say, live in Ontario, will
know about the underground railroad, which sort of makes people feel
good because we feel “we’re welcoming poor, fugitive American slaves and
giving them their freedom here.
“So it’s convenient to know about
that. And if a Canadian does know a tiny bit about black history in
Canada they’re likely to trumpet the underground railroad,” Hill said.
“But very few people can talk about, or know anything about the black
Loyalists or them being so terribly mistreated in Nova Scotia that they
left en masse 10 years later.”

First, make no mistake: It was Native Americans who spearheaded and
bore the brunt of the campaign against the TransCanada Keystone XL
Pipeline.The news media continue to
engage in loathsome racist marginalization by ignoring Native
involvement in this struggle, touting the opposition of
environmentalists. With all due respect to our environmentalist allies,
they were following the Indian lead, but it was Native Americans of
Canada and the U.S. in the forefront of this protracted struggle, which
is still far from over. Nonetheless, a major battle has been won.The
rejection of the pipeline by President Obama was a tremendous victory
for tribal nations of the U.S. and Canada. Obama listened to the voices
of this land’s first peoples. In early December, Native leaders
presented the president with the “Mother Earth Accord” that outlined the
unique U.S. Tribal and Canadian First Nations objections to the
pipeline.In
Alberta province, for example, it was pointed out that the extraction of
tar sands oil had already been linked to a 30 percent elevated rate of
rare cancers and autoimmune diseases in First Nations communities
downstream from the project. The Mother Earth Accord was developed this
past September at the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Emergency Summit. More than 20
tribal nations and private landowners, private citizens, environmental
organizations and Canadian political parties endorsed the accord in
opposition to the pipeline.There
were, of course, the naysayers to this decision, led by Republicans
with inane, vociferating, hypocritical temerity. Perhaps, the Obama
administration is finally realizing that attempting to work with them is
akin to entering a Faustian compact.Republicans
contended that the project would have produced tens of thousands of
jobs. Balderdash. With the exception of possibly a couple of thousand
temporary construction jobs along the pipeline route from Canada to the
Texas Gulf Coast, there was little prospective job creation. Further,
latest studies estimate that the pipeline would create fewer than 100
permanent jobs.

Pundits continue to downplay the massive coalition led by Native
people with such comments as Obama is “pandering to a small
environmental constituency.” They deny that Native people are a
political force to be reckoned with.There
had recently been massive demonstrations against the pipeline at the
White House. In a two-week, August-September protest mostly by American
Indians, 1,253 were arrested. On Nov. 6, more than 12,000 demonstrated
in a “human chain” protest that encircled the White House! Incredibly,
neither massive protest was reported by the TV or newspaper media, a
woeful commentary on the stranglehold exerted on news by corporate
moguls.The
proposed pipeline would have been deadly for Canadian tribal nations and
at least five U.S. Native American reservations and six states.
President Obama is to be lauded for his disapproval of this heinous
enterprise. Further, this rejection represents a history-making Native
American victory over the mammon-obsessed jackals of corporate greed.